io6 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



thrown up, or turned out, but from the time when the 

 horse is first taken up, and has begun to be conditioned, 

 to the end of the hunting season, will have been about 

 nine months, and he will have eaten about eighteen or 

 twenty sacks. 



It does not seem much, but it is the principal diet of 

 the horse, and it comes very hard on him if his diet is 

 not the best procurable. For practical purposes, and 

 on economic principles, it is found best to buy about 

 fifty or sixty quarters at a time, a quarter being two 

 sacks. 



Meal. — In meal we have what is the greatest item of 

 expenditure in the kennel, for meal varies in price to 

 the same extent as hay, ranging from £12, to ;^i8 per 

 ton. As it may be taken that, on an average, each 

 hound consumes rather less than a quarter of a ton of 

 meal, or rather more than ^3 worth in a year, the 

 annual bill for meal alone will, in a kennel of, say, fifty 

 couples of hounds, amount to ;^320 or ;^330 in the 

 season. It is important to get meal in advance, so as, 

 if possible, to have a year's rations in hand. Never 

 did sporting character in fact or fiction speak truer 

 word than when Mr. Jorrocks told the mad doctor, 

 "Always have a year's meal in hand. Old goes half as 

 far again as new." 



Coal. — Although the coal bill for kennels and stables 

 is not a very heavy item, I find that my own average 

 consumption was about a hundred tons a year. The 

 cost of coal is too familiar to need specifying, and it 

 varies, of course, with the distance from the nearest 

 coal centre. 



